Traitor Guardsmen had built a network of trenches through the city of Mineska. Chaos had wormed its way through the metropolis to the extent that debased siegeworks could be seen from the windows of the Imperial Governor's palace. Despite this, Governor Ainucnam continued his duties, confident that his Ulani tank regiments would check the Chaos advance, at least until the Astartes arrived.

Flame On, with special Epic UK friends Tim and Tom, pooled their scenery collection for a mega-battle. We'd call it the Stomp Informal, but that does Si a disservice. The man had crafted a scenario for this epic Epic showdown which pitted Imperial versus Chaos on a 24'x6' city board. 8 players clashed for supremacy.

Imperial Commanders Curis and SPAYSE MAHREEN had a heated discussion on tactics. It was settled by arm wrestling.

To aid the Imperial Commander, Black Templars, White Scars and Dark Angels swept down from the skies Drop Pods and Thunderhawks. The combination of Stomp's aggressive Crusaders with Si's resilient Leman Russes broke the Chaos on the Imperial right flank.

Grand Urlock, Despoiler of Worlds, and all round Evil Overlord, Tim could do little to stop the Flame On synergysing. The right flank was a 5-2 victory to the Imperials.

Meanwhile, Chaos Commander Christian had brought a Dark Imperator Titan to the game. Here's Curis and Christian doing their very best Imperator impressions. The Imperials chose to ignore this mighty firebase in favour of the objectives, with the left flank ending at a 3-3 tie. Overall, a victory for the Imperium of Man. And now, to end on the obligatory shot of Simon at a trendy bar.

Codex Astartes Bomb at Open War XVII

Written by Curis

Thursday, 19 April 2012 10:36

April in the Championship season, and I'm determined to pull further ahead of Flame On's Simon in the Epic UK Championship. I set myself the challenge of avoiding the normal Marine crutch units - Warhound Titans, Thunderbolts and Terminators. I wanted to see if I could compete with a non-standard list. I still went Thunderhawk heavy though, I love Thunderhawks.

I also tried Scouts with Razorbacks - as I liked the idea of garrisoned twin-linked Lascannons. This necessitated lots of conversions using Ork battlewagon turrets glued together, as the classic SM2 era Razorbacks are super-rare.

Assault Marines - Supreme Commander

Assault Marines - Chaplain

Assault Marines - Chaplain

Devastators Devastators

Devastators

Thunderhawk Gunship

Thunderhawk Gunship

Thunderhawk Gunship

Scouts - 4 Lascannon Razorbacks

Scouts - 4 Lascannon Razorbacks

Scouts - 3 Lascannon Razorbacks, 1 Rhino

Land Speeders

To battle!

With the tournament registration starting in Mansfield at 8:30am, we set off from Manchester at 8:29am thanks to Simon's insistence on a heavy night out on Canal Street.

"These drinks are called bombs Simon! They're 3BP each!"

Game 1 - Steve Gullick's Biel-tan Eldar

Steve had a fairly similar strategy to me - with two sets of Aspects in Vampires that would aerially assault, while his ground formations sat around on overwatch on objectives. We romped through turns one and two in under ten minutes - which was fortunate as our late departure meant we were pushed for time. The flying transports (each containing our BTSs) both landed turn 3, with the exception of my first laden Thunderhawk that was shot down in flames with no survivors. I forced it to a Turn 4, but Steve obliterated my measly four-strong Assault Marines BTS and had a set of Aspects on my Blitz I was unable to approach let alone shift. 0-2 turn 4.

Game 2 - Jez Lock's Codex Astartes Space Marines

Aha! A rematch against Jez's Marines with a pair of Warhounds as its BTS. I'd played this last tournament - where I'd pounced on his Titanly BTS with all my Thunderhawks Turn 1, leaving one on 1DC. The hall had then witnessed howls of frustration as everything else I had fired at it hoping to finish it off only to watch it pass every 5+ reinforced save ever.

This game I forced corners, and attempted a similar Thunderhawk trick. At the critical moment Jez had advanced the bulk of his army up the board leaving the Warhounds behind unsupported. My first Thunderhawk approached this pair of cursed dogbots - only to be shot down on the approach. Again. Twice in two games. I elected not to retain, and Jez doubled the Warhounds back to the safety of the main bulk of his force. However, I still had two Thunderhawks left, and they did the classic one-two with the first dropping off its formations within 15cm to lay blast markers and add supporting fire for the engagement from the second. This wiped all the DC off both of them, and I got revenge. However, this was a case of Captain Ahab getting his whale, as my obsession with the Warhounds meant the bulk of my army was in the open against Jez's Marines. He won the initiative Turn 2 and destroyed all my Titan-hunters in turn, and went on for a 2-1 win Turn 3.

Game 3 - Tim Hunt's Steel Legion Imperial Guard

Two losses under my belt, and the alleged swissing system now drew me against gaming supremo Tim Hunt. Argh! I've already faced one premier league player, I can't manage two. Tim expertly pulled my forces apart in short order, with my only real good tactical moves limited to onion-skinning my Blitz with formations from Thunderhawks to force a Turn 4. At least none of them were shot down on the approach. Tim managed to assault some Razorbacks with his Deathstrikes, proving their worth as a front-line battletank.

So, three losses. Dismal outing for the experimental Warhoundless Marines. Simon did similarly badly. However, he was using the same list to a previous tournament - and I was using a different Marine list to last tike (Codex Astartes and not White Scars) so I qualified for a bonus championship point - and pulled further ahead of him in the Championship. Epic win!

FLAME ON PRESENTS

BATTLE OF THE CHUMPS 2012

"Dr. Chump"

Saturday 14th & Sunday 15th July 2012 Registration 9:00am – 9:30am

Maelstrom Games, Mansfield

Tickets - £35 per person

So long and thanks for all the fish

First off, I am sure you will join us all in thanking Neil Kerr for starting BotCh and running the first 6 BotCh's over the last few years. With the end of the Chump Wars Saga Neil has decided to move on to new challenges in life, but rest assured BotCh is in safe hands, and we look forward to this new exciting era, the start of the Double O Chump series.

Welcome to the seventh annual Flame On Battle of the Chumps event. There is no stopping us now. The battlefield, as ever, is situated on a war-torn planet of Chumponia where escalating engagements will build up over the weekend into all out war and climatic final battles to decide who shall rule.

In a real war skilful application of strategy and tactics will give the participants an edge in the conflict. The different sized games over the weekend, together with some non standard missions and objectives, is all designed to provide players with the opportunity to exercise these skills more than they would be able to do under normal tournament conditions.

Usually, players meet each other on a one to one basis, each with the same tactical objectives in mind. These represent individual minor clashes or a small part of a greater conflict that occur in a short period of time.

This event represents events occurring over a longer timescale where huge forces clash on an extensive battlefront across which conditions and objectives vary widely. In such titanic battles it is success or failure of large groups of forces which is important not the localised success or failure of one individual force; though they may greatly influence the course of the war through their bravery, skill or shear dumb luck.

The weekend's gaming is designed to reflect such conditions so the emphasis is on your overall tactical ability rather than creating a single all winning force. To win each player will need to demonstrate their ability to create and field their army in variously sized conflicts against a diverse selection of foes in order to achieve success. This might mean difficult strategic and tactical decisions need to be made while selecting your separate forces, but that is the true nature of warfare on a large scale.

Each player will have 3 separate and distinct armies drawn from the same codex. The first is a small recon force, the second is a main battle group and the third a large war host.

BotCh 2012 Epic Armageddon tickets - £35

BotCh 2012 Malifaux tickets - £35

Congratulations to Si, who took home third place at Epic UK's opening event of the year - Full Scale Assault. Si's Shadow Scorpions, posing as Black Templars, stormed to victory.

Mike Mee's Biel Tann narrowly missed out on Epic UK Championship Points by one place at ninth, while Curis languished somewhere towards the bottom with his 1990s World Eaters.

Current Championship rankings for Flame On stand at:

1st Si (8) =2nd Mee (0) =2nd Curis (0)

Special apologies to Rug, who took a lot of shit from pre-tournie pub excursion for crying off due to snow forecasts.

TURBO! MIDDLE! FINGER!

Rug got the last laugh as he stayed at home toastie warm on Saturday night while Flame On crawled the 6 1/2 hours back to Manchester. We promised each other if worst came to worst and we had to huddle together for warmth to survive the night THEN WE'D CHOOSE DEATH.

We're looking forward to the next fixture in the Epic UK tournament season - Into the Breach 2012.

The dust has settled, the annual Stockport Stockade has been and gone for another year. I'd say it's Manchester's premier Epic Armageddon tournament, but since Britcon includes Epic too I have to have the smaller boast of Stockport's premier Epic Armageddon tournament.

Eager gamers flocked from as far south as Surrey to compete for the glittering prizes, and the chance to test out the new Stockade scenario - Objectivity. Here's the now-obligatory shot of Jeridian, fighting it out with his Shadow Scorpion Space Marines. Epic UK have rejigged the Space Marine Codex this year so Si took to fielding his Scorpions as a ground-pounding Dark Angel force - or Iron Wing I'd say if anyone's old enough to remember that company.

The angle makes the man look like album artwork. Hang on...

Not sure why I just did that. Anyway, Si took the newly-rejigged Dark Angels list, and was drawn against Tim Hunt's Dark Angels. I enjoyed this match-up as both players were attracted to the list as it's new version allows them to field twice as many Hunters (Space Marine AA tanks) in a formation. However, Dark Angels don't have any allied Navy so it's largely wasted. Who won what? 3rd place, and Most Visually Awesome - Judge's Choice went to Steve Gullick and his Vanaheim air Cavlary.

Steve's Vanaheim makes heavy use of alternative manufacturers mixed in with exceedingly rare Games Workshop Epic Catachans. I (the judge) enjoyed its smorgasbord feel and variety. 2nd place went to Tim "James Dean Bradfield" Hunt. We are pleased to announce his bandmate Matt "Richey Edwards" Otter has been found alive and well recently following his disappeareance in 2009.

1st place went to Maaatt Arnoooldd. The expression we're pulling, and the hat is a homage to Epic UK chairman Matt Otter. Maaatt Arnoooldd is constantly living in constant fear that photos of him involved in such high levels of nerdery will leak on Facebook and cause every girl he's ever known to shun him, and so I've even obfuscated his name in case Google image search for for him turns up these blackmail gems.

Last place, and Most Visually Awesome: Player's Choice went to James Ramsay and his Death Guard.

Steve's gallery of the armies can be found here. Special thanks to Tom Webb (no relation) of Exodus Wars, who sponsored the event and provided a big pile of Exodus Wars blister packs for prizes. These will undoubtedly surface at next year's Stockade in the various armies. They do a great line of 6mm sci-fi pieces, including the Khazari - a range of squat bearded chaps.

Special thanks to Steve as well who gave an Epic scale Magnus the Red and Ahriman to every attendee. And also donated a pile of metal Chaos Rhinos to the prize pool. And thanks to all who came and partied hard over the weekend. See you all for Stockport Stockade 2012AD: A Certain Shade of MAHREEN.